Search This Blog

Subscribe to this blog

Birraire's Newsletter

Best Beers

There are many circumstances that cause my rate of publication on the blog to be irregular: from family matters to work peaks, as well as the effective distribution of my spare time in cultural activities, sports and other projects. Today, I am pleased to present the result of a few hours devoted to this last category early this year.

The Pocket Beer Book 3rd Edition -Best Beers, in America-, by Stephen Beaumont and Tim Webb, was published by Mitchell Beazley -Octopus Publishing- a few weeks ago, on November 2nd. In a format that, as the title itself suggests, is indeed compact, the work includes an extensive collection of beers from more than 60 countries around the world. All of them are briefly reviewed, while those 'iconic', 'must-try' and 'to watch' breweries that a beer enthusiast can find are conveniently highlighted.

To this end, the authors have selected 34 collaborators from all over the globe to have the necessary local knowledge, while also developing a thorough fieldwork to ensure the quality of the listed beers meets high standards. In this sense, I am proud to be among this list of great beer writers, some of whom I have been following for years, contributing myself with a selection of brands for the Spanish beer section.

A priori, it could seem a fairly simple job, although once I started to list candidates I realised that it would indeed be a complex task. Without repeating breweries, the starting criterion was that they had to be 'the best' beers, a qualification with which I have never felt too comfortable; but the exercise turned out to be interesting because of the many hints and considerations it involved. The wild card also helped, being able to incorporate some breweries under the 'to watch' category, which highlights young brewers with high potential.

Leaving aside sympathies and personal preferences, trying in each case to value the technical merit above all, I got an immense list. Thinking between hours and 'facing' candidates among them I managed to reduce it, although one criterion that turned out to be key was the availability and consistency of each beer. A fact that even made me reconsider the final products to highlight of some breweries. The result: a list of 24 spectacular beers, to which two more have subsequently been added, and 3 young breweries highlighted in the 'to watch' section.

The fact that two months later I would have adjusted the selection is the proof of how complex the exercise becomes, and to what extent the market is constantly changing. Although, in any case, I believe that the selection was fair, and that it complies with its original purpose: to be a representative sample of great beers from this part of the world, available to all visitors who purchase the book with the desire to explore our beer scene with a small pre-filter for a better guarantee of success.

If someone is interested, the book can easily be found in online stores in its original English version. I really wish you like it, looking forward to your feedback!

Salut i birra!

Transparency disclaimer: as pointed out throughout the entry, I am a contributor to the book; but beyond the service already provided, I do not receive any remuneration for its sales or its publicity.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Right now it is that time of the year when one leaves the Barcelona Beer Festival behind and realises that the world has not stopped in the last few weeks. After the usual three weeks long mental
disconnection with reality, I sadly come upon the bad news of the death of Pièrre Zuber, owner of
Délices et Caprices in Brussels.

"People like Pièrre perform an essential work for the dissemination of beer culture"

The Session, a.k.a. Beer Blogging Friday, is an opportunity once a month for beer bloggers from around the world to get together and write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts the Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing all of the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry. (more on Brookston Beer Bulletin).

"I believe the importance of books for the beer culture makes them worthy of another Session"

The other day I received a remarkably big shipment, corresponding to my reward for contributing to the crowdfunding project organised by Cervesa Montseny. Coinciding with its tenth anniversary, they wanted to take another step forward by presenting some of their beers canned, and to finance the whole thing they resorted to their followers. I was enjoying one Lupulus can -by the way, big change eh?- when I began pondering about everything that has happened during all this time, so that I could be at home drinking that specific variety of beer so utterly fresh; in that format that a few years before was associated with cheap, poorly tasting beer; and in a glass with a relevant symbolic charge. I took a picture, and then I started writing.